Higher resilience to climatic disturbances in tropical vegetation exposed to more variable rainfall
Higher resilience to climatic disturbances in tropical vegetation exposed to more variable rainfall
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s41561-019-0312-z
复制
发表时间：
2019-03-01
影响因子：
18.3
通讯作者：
Winkelmann, Ricarda
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ciemer, Catrin;Boers, Niklas;Winkelmann, Ricarda
随着全球持续变暖，热带地区的降雨量和频率预计将发生重大变化。虽然已表明热带森林和热带草原维持在相同的年平均降水量范围内，但导致这些生态系统恢复能力的机制仍未得到充分了解。特别是，降雨量变化对复原力的长期影响尚不清楚。在这里，我们提出了观测证据，表明热带森林和稀树草原在长期过去受到更高的降雨量变化--特别是在年际尺度上--总体上对气候扰动的适应能力更强。基于巴西亚马逊盆地的降水和树木覆盖数据，我们构建了潜在的景观，使我们能够系统地衡量不同生态系统的弹性。此外，我们推断，未来降水量减少导致的从森林到草原的转变更有可能发生在降雨量变率较低的前兆地区。因此，在对植被对气候变化的反应进行复原力分析和预测时，需要考虑到长期降雨量的变化。
With ongoing global warming, the amount and frequency of precipitation in the tropics is projected to change substantially. While it has been shown that tropical forests and savannahs are sustained within the same intermediate mean annual precipitation range, the mechanisms that lead to the resilience of these ecosystems are still not fully understood. In particular, the long-term impact of rainfall variability on resilience is as yet unclear. Here we present observational evidence that both tropical forest and savannah exposed to a higher rainfall variability-in particular on interannual scales-during their long-term past are overall more resilient against climatic disturbances. Based on precipitation and tree cover data in the Brazilian Amazon basin, we constructed potential landscapes that enable us to systematically measure the resilience of the different ecosystems. Additionally, we infer that shifts from forest to savannah due to decreasing precipitation in the future are more likely to occur in regions with a precursory lower rainfall variability. Long-term rainfall variability thus needs to be taken into account in resilience analyses and projections of vegetation response to climate change.